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Loaded Penguins Bruins' biggest challenge since Canucks in Cup run

Whether getting offense from their stacked top two lines or from Kris Letang on the back end, the Penguins can score. They can score more than the Bruins, more than the Maple Leafs, more than the Rangers, more than anyone.

The last time the Bruins faced a team as loaded offensively as the Penguins was when they squared off against the Canucks in the 2011 Stanley Cup finals. The Canucks led the NHL with 3.15 goals per game in that regular season, with this year's Penguins squad leading the league with 3.38 goals per game in the regular season.

Not only did the Penguins lead the league in scoring, but it wasn't close. Pittsburgh's 3.38 goals a game were over a quarter of a goal more than Chicago, who finished second.

David Krejci leads all postseason players in points with 17, but the next three are Penguins -- Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang with 16 apiece and Sidney Crosby with 15 points despite only playing in 10 games (The Penguins have played 11, the B's have played 12). In fact, the top six point-getters this postseason as of Monday are in this series: Krejci, Malkin, Letang, Crosby, Nathan Horton (12) and Jarome Iginla (12).

On Monday, Claude Julien compared the Penguins' speed to that of the Canucks in 2011, saying "Vancouver was one of those teams that everybody talked about having great speed, so it’s not like we’re going into unknown territory here." He was then asked to follow up that point by comparing the teams in general, and Julien certainly sees similarities given how star-studded Pittsburgh's lineup is.

"It’s a comparable," Julien said. "I’d have to think that right now, when you look at Pittsburgh’s roster, it’s really deep. They made a lot of big trades at the end to make sure that they had the team to compete for a Cup. They threw all their eggs in the same basket and they’re going for it."

"We know what we’re up against and we just have to face that challenge. At the end of the day names are one thing, but what players do on the ice is another, and that’s where have to make sure our focus is on executing extremely well. Discipline is going to be a must in this series because they thrive on their power plays, and somehow they seem to get some every game. We know how things are with us as far as a team. It’s tough to get power plays and we end up killing more than we end up having, power plays. We’re going to have to be extremely disciplined."

Julien isn't kidding about the Penguins thriving on power plays. After finishing second in the league in power play success rate, the Penguins currently lead all playoff teams with a 28.3 percent scoring clip on the man advantage. They're 13-for-46 in the playoffs and have scored at least one power play goal in eight of their 11 playoff games. They have a first unit that features Crosby, Malkin, Chris Kunitz, Letang and Iginla. That's a little tougher than what the Bruins had to face against the Rangers.

Having that many star players on the ice at the same time is something the Bruins haven't had to deal with for a prolonged stretch since they faced the Canucks two years ago. The Penguins won all three regular-season meetings with one-goal victories, and they did it without Malkin. He's healthy and contributing now, so you know the Penguins are going to score. The B's are confident that though they might not be as flashy, they can too.

"We’ve got two lines that we feel are pretty good as well," Julien said Monday. "Maybe we don’t have the names that the Penguins have when it comes to the Crosbys, the Malkins, but we have guys that have done a great job in the past, that have worked well together, that have given us an opportunity to be a championship team. Depth is certainly going to be challenged with another team that has just as much. We talked about how useful it was in the first couple of rounds; well, it’s going to be a challenge here in this one against Pittsburgh."

When the Bruins beat the Canucks in 2011, they did it by using the Chara-Seidenberg pairing. Mike Salk had a really good read on Monday about defending the Penguins, and he mentioned splitting up the pairing so one of the two would always be on the ice against Pittsburgh's top two lines. Whether the B's do that will be one of the biggest things to watch early in the series, because although Seidenberg seems more effective staying on the right side, leaving him with Chara would mean asking quite a bit of Matt Bartkowski (or Andrew Ference) and Johnny Boychuk.

In the regular season, the Bruins' top pairing against the Penguins varied between Chara-Boychuk and Chara-Seidenberg. In the first two meetings between the teams, the Bruins stuck with the Chara-Boychuk pairing that they use throughout the regular season. The Chara-Seidenberg pairing was used in the teams' third and final regular season meeting, which was the only time they met after the Penguins acquired Iginla.

Julien said that the Bruins have yet to make the decision as to which pairings they will use against the Penguins. They stayed off the ice Sunday and Monday, but returning to practice Tuesday should give some sort of indication.

"Right now we’re looking at game tapes and kind of identifying everything," he said. "We’ve got a few days here before we can even think about playing that first game. We’ll see how that goes and maybe it’s a pairing, maybe it’s separating, but we’ll have something in mind by the time the first game comes around."

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